bloody tentacles by zuurr

[raw]
made by zuurr for LD33 (JAM)
this is my tech demo i mean game "bloody tentacles"

you are an eyeball and/or jellyfish monster and need to kill people who fly in helicopters and then get to the exit. as you kill more things your tentacles get bloodier.

also dodge the spikes that are on the walls in the later levels.


controls / how to play:

the controls are at the bottom of the page and the rest is supposed to be somewhat discoverable in the game but i am not great at level design, so here it is anyway.

- you move around with wasd or arrow keys and can aim your tentacles by clicking where you want them to point at with your mouse.

- enemies will be damaged when they hit your tentacles.

- once you kill all the enemies the exit to the level will open and its position will be indicated

- there are 5 levels before you win.

- you are damaged by colliding with enemies or their missiles or spikes.

- if you die you come back as a slightly smaller version of yourself. when you complete a level you get full health, an extra life (up to a maximum of 2) and grow bigger again.






note on the post-jam version:

don't score me on it. really.

if it doesnt work for you, try the other one. it's been tested on more systems. particularly i dont have access to linux, but i know the released version works on it. this one, i'm less confident about.

most of the bugs and changes are minor and i probably wouldnt put it up if someone didnt call me out on them on irc.

this is the list of the bugs that i have fixed in the post-jam version.

- make bullets actually fire. this had caused the 'damage when nothing is there' bug. bullets were staying in place since they had 0 velocity and were hard to see). most enemies have rockets so this was not a big deal.

- make tentacle-enemy collision detection more accurate when on the right side of the screen (... don't ask).

- make exit particles come from you instead of to you (this is the only one that is not really a bug, but makes it more obvious you are not being shot once you beat the level).

- optimize how blood particles are handled, hopefully leading to fewer dropped frames.

Ratings

Coolness 78% 2
Overall(Jam) 3.58 236
Audio(Jam) 3.24 331
Fun(Jam) 3.51 212
Graphics(Jam) 3.77 339
Humor(Jam) 2.68 582
Innovation(Jam) 3.23 361
Mood(Jam) 3.28 416
Theme(Jam) 3.92 165

Feedback

Benjaminsen
24. Aug 2015 · 23:07 UTC
Quite good. Very impressed with the HTML sound and music. Sadly did not work in Safari but played well in Chrome
thristhart
24. Aug 2015 · 23:25 UTC
Very impressive visuals and tech! The gameplay was a little easy but fun at the core. Will definitely take some time to look through the source and learn from it!
Xanderzoo
25. Aug 2015 · 00:02 UTC
I loved the graphics. I gave it an overall rating of 4.
Mark Smith
25. Aug 2015 · 00:09 UTC
Great game! I love the sound effects and music. The gameplay was pretty solid too. I got frustrated with the spikes but it reminded me of how unforgiving older games used to be which suits the art style. Great job!
pkenney
25. Aug 2015 · 00:11 UTC
Hey, this was pretty fun! It was a nice touch to have the spikes-only level introduce that element, and after that I was pretty good at not taking damage.

I beat it without dying on the first play-through, but juuuust barely, so it was spot on for difficulty.

If I would suggest one improvement, it's the camera's movement. The way it lags behind the player's movement means you can't see ahead of you, which I sorta solved by just constantly always using my tentacles, since that can adjust the camera as well. But it wasn't a big problem at all, since I could adjust it. Just meant I held mouse down the entire game.

The tentacles were very nice - the right mix of mysterious and usable. I didn't really notice the bloodiness while playing, though.
glerikud
25. Aug 2015 · 01:05 UTC
It's a fun game, I enjoyed it.
Lucho9
25. Aug 2015 · 01:07 UTC
oh my god, it s awesome, i love the character and how it moves
retrogradeorbit
25. Aug 2015 · 01:08 UTC
Chrome Version 44.0.2403.155 (64-bit) on linux. Game doesn't launch. Just text screen. Oooh and I wanted to play this badly! :(
Halleflux
25. Aug 2015 · 01:09 UTC
Doesn't work with Chrome for me. Just doesn't show up =\
🎤 zuurr
25. Aug 2015 · 01:10 UTC
Halleflux: are you on linux too?
🎤 zuurr
25. Aug 2015 · 01:20 UTC
retrogradeorbit, Halleflux: does it just say loading? if so it is uh, possibly still loading. this can take some time since it is not hosted on great servers and i don't do anything clever with loading. it shouldnt take more than a minute though.

if you don't see loading then something errored before then? usually it should say "init failed D:" if it fails at that state.

either way if you happen to look here again (or if anybody else who it does not work for does), i would greatly appreciate getting the console log. you can bring this up by right clicking on the page, clicking inspect element, and going to the console tab.

i am a little bit verbose in my logging but there shouldnt be any errors, so if there are that is likely the problem. if you could paste said log into a pastebin or something i'd appreciate it.
SeaDads
25. Aug 2015 · 01:38 UTC
Not showing up on Chrome for me.. :(
🎤 zuurr
25. Aug 2015 · 02:09 UTC
Should be fixed for some versions of chrome and older browsers now!
jphelps
25. Aug 2015 · 02:22 UTC
great job i was impressed
MechaTofuPirate
25. Aug 2015 · 02:24 UTC
Loved everything about it. Cool artwork, fun, and cool audio too. Can't wait to poke around the source code later
awsumpwner27
25. Aug 2015 · 03:12 UTC
My computer is terrible, but in spite of that, this game looks like it's doing heavy lifting, but somehow it runs at a playable rate on this thing.
Also, the background art is very nice.
khahem
25. Aug 2015 · 03:37 UTC
Great monster, great tentacles, fun to play, and just the right difficulty. Good job !
GreaseMonkey
25. Aug 2015 · 04:01 UTC
Let's just get the worst bit out of the way: The music doesn't grow on you, it just gets up your nerves. It's coherent, but the samples (especially the bass) really should be changed. Rest of the sound was solid.

In a single sentence, this game is a very well-made cliche game-jam maze survival game. Ultimately the innovation is the sheer spam of tentacles everywhere which you can (but don't have to) guide with the mouse, which adds a star to the innovation score, bringing it up to 2.

The level design is good and you don't often find yourself getting stuck in all the dead ends trying to find the last enemy, but that can happen on the last level. It's actually a quite enjoyable game, if albeit not very memorable, and is actually a reasonable challenge. (The lives system makes it a lot easier to complete.)

And of course, the graphics are top-notch.

I don't care much about mood but with audio or without you are definitely a big scary monster, which also helps with the theme score.

Overall, 4 stars.
adsilcott
25. Aug 2015 · 04:18 UTC
Love the tentacle effects, and the game is so smooth and polished. Great stuff!
Halleflux
25. Aug 2015 · 08:49 UTC
I am glad that I came back to this entry. That is some REALLY cool stuff going on there. Did you use GPU acceleration, or are the the tentacles just particles/something similar?
🎤 zuurr
25. Aug 2015 · 15:00 UTC
halleflux: it's all done on the cpu. it is structured similarly to how you usually structure particle systems, yes -- basically a big transformation over float arrays. the relevant code is here: https://github.com/thomcc/ld33/blob/master/src/Main.js#L544-L572
mantis
25. Aug 2015 · 16:16 UTC
That was hard. I wasn't sure I could do even harder level, but then I WAS THE MONSTER :)
PizzaPortal
25. Aug 2015 · 17:13 UTC
Really great :D I really liked the music and graphic effects.
ponk
25. Aug 2015 · 21:40 UTC
It's amazing ! Innovative and beautiful
dollarone
26. Aug 2015 · 00:10 UTC
Fantastic game. So far the game that have made me feel that I indeed am the monster. Great tentacles! I like the idea of your second life being a slightly lesser version!
commanderstitch
26. Aug 2015 · 01:12 UTC
nice entry. I had fun running around hitting all the spikes and getting shot. lol. I noticed a music loop at one point. I also liked my character getting smaller with each renewed life. :-)
ReactorScram
26. Aug 2015 · 04:40 UTC
Hard but I just barely won. The tentacle animation and graphics are very cool.
thebrickanator
26. Aug 2015 · 04:59 UTC
Really cool quality game :)
jackrugile
26. Aug 2015 · 06:44 UTC
Great fun, nice concept ;) It's really satisfying killing the enemies. Even your own death is satisfying with all the blood, haha.

It would be nice to have a tighter camera on the monster though. I went blind into a sections a lot of the time.

Also, there are times when it was difficult to see my character. I always knew where it was, but it still was hard to distinguish from the background because there are a lot of times when the bright light of your eye is covered by your tentacles. Maybe have the eye always in the foreground?

Nice work!
Nibble Bits Studio
26. Aug 2015 · 07:16 UTC
This game is amazing! Great gameplay, great feedbacks, great audio and great level design!
Awpteamoose
26. Aug 2015 · 09:09 UTC
I sometimes took damage without any enemies or spikes present, maybe I collided with dead enemies?
Still quite impressive for a one-man project.
allinlabs
26. Aug 2015 · 11:23 UTC
The level tiles and enemies are a little too repetitive, but the monster is freaking awesome and I love how it moves his bloody tentacles. A real nightmare vision. Well done!
Kerdelos
26. Aug 2015 · 13:03 UTC
The game failed to start once but then it worked. It's nice, the music is a bit repetitive and the grahics well done, I particularly like the tentacles rendering. On the gameplay part I find it weird to just shove my tentacles to the ennemies face. Maybe if you had to play with the tentacles momentum to add them speed it would be funnier.
Good job anyway ;D
Goutye
26. Aug 2015 · 13:22 UTC
The tentacles <3 Well done, I enjoyed it until the end!
bytegrove
26. Aug 2015 · 15:56 UTC
Cool tentacle effect, nice work! I found the controls pretty unintuitive, maybe make it possible to control the tentacles with the arrow keys?
I like the menacing atmosphere in the game! :)
Kuchalu
26. Aug 2015 · 20:28 UTC
Neat graphics, cool sound and fun gameplay!
eric777
26. Aug 2015 · 20:39 UTC
Very fun. Liked the music - reminded me of the original doom sound track a bit. I really liked the mechanic of flying with keys and attacking with mouse. Tentacle animation was great, made me feel like an angry squid.

Great job!
Ryusui
26. Aug 2015 · 21:53 UTC
I love the look of the creepy tentacles. Only one thing bothers me: wouldn't it make more sense for the "end-of-level compass" dots to travel from the monster to the exit, rather than vice versa? I honestly thought something was shooting at me at first. ^_^;
superfreak
26. Aug 2015 · 22:16 UTC
LOVE the controls - felt amazing to play. Great, fast-paced action with brilliant graphics and sound. <3 :3
fubenalvo
26. Aug 2015 · 22:17 UTC
I don't like the style, but very impressive the animation. The gameplay is not easy, but completeble. I enjoyed it :)
kaype
27. Aug 2015 · 04:26 UTC
Woaaaaaahhh, this art is amazing.
The audio is really loud and a bit repetitive, but the game itself is really fun. However you animated those tentacles beats me, I would've had a *really* hard time with that.
Geckoo1337
27. Aug 2015 · 05:11 UTC
Ugly creature for a great game. Neat ++
GAFBlizzard
27. Aug 2015 · 05:47 UTC
This is probably the most unusual monster I have played thus far. Whipping your hair back and forth to destroy enemies was pretty entertaining. The slingshot mechanic was neat even if it meant I would propel my vulnerable eyeball into a monster or spikes.

It was really nice that you could keep playing as a smaller monster so damage was not as punishing. The one thing I noticed that was really punishing was that dying on level 5 meant you had to replay all the levels again. I still replayed them and beat the last one anyway!
GAFBlizzard
27. Aug 2015 · 05:53 UTC
Oh, one more suggestion. If you work on this some more, try making the slingshot mechanic more pronounced, and giving the player some invincibility frames (changing the eye color or something to indicate this), so you could use the slingshot mechanic to bash through enemies you don't want to tentacle.
euske
27. Aug 2015 · 22:25 UTC
Nice graphics and overall mood! I also liked how you showed dots leading to the goal after you beat all the enemies. Good job.
Tijn
27. Aug 2015 · 22:45 UTC
Cool game, man! It runs very nice and looks great :) It's nice to throw those tentacles around :P Lots of content as well! Some of those levels are *huge* :o
Ninja Garage
28. Aug 2015 · 00:23 UTC
Good work, I really enjoyed the game!
voidstar33
28. Aug 2015 · 15:59 UTC
The tentacle animation is a technical achievement. Great entry. Nice game play. 5 for innovation, fun, theme and graphics.
Archonthewizard
28. Aug 2015 · 18:30 UTC
Art and audio were great. Funny concept. The missiles were a bit hard to dodge due to their speed and the narrow passages.
block97
29. Aug 2015 · 15:58 UTC
Very fun little game. didn't have a ton of variety, but that really didn't bring the game down too much.
Karai17
30. Aug 2015 · 01:59 UTC
Really fun little game! Add more levels and baddies and release it on Steam/itch! :D
El Cabaro
30. Aug 2015 · 02:31 UTC
Figured I'd come over and play your game. I saw this a while back and thought it was cool from the pictures, and I was proven correct. Real neat game.

I liked the graphics especially. I can't sing high praises of the little audio loop but y'know, it did its job. Cheers!
belowzerogames
30. Aug 2015 · 03:36 UTC
Pretty cool game had no issues controls were smooth just after dying the last time some of the text was cut off in the message screen. No biggy though game was good :-)
AzureKnight808
30. Aug 2015 · 04:02 UTC
Awesome! Very fluid controls and I love the tentacles and the particles effects.
Shaun LeBron
31. Aug 2015 · 04:15 UTC
yup, this is really cool. fantastic work on the art
derr
31. Aug 2015 · 09:36 UTC
I love the idea of using swooping tentacles as weapons and I would have loved for them to be even longer.
rxi
31. Aug 2015 · 21:21 UTC
Fives stars for both the "Tentacles" and "Loudness" categories!

Loved the look of the tentacles, stringy and wild and a little weird, but it made perfect sense given I was this floating eye.. thing..

Lots of parts of the game simply felt "right", the weight to the movement, the little "dodges" of the helicopter drone things, the tentacles -- all lent itself to an enjoyable experience.

Nice work overall!
shawn42
01. Sep 2015 · 02:24 UTC
Amazing fun with high speed tentacle killing!
jimmypaulin
07. Sep 2015 · 12:10 UTC
"Yeehaa I am a badass flying eyeball jellyfish of DOOOOOOM fear me flying drone wannabes for I shall smite thee into oblivion." I can see the box art now, circa 1993. I would have gone mad for this back then. Would love to see more environment art, but that pumping soundtrack makes it so immersive. The tentacles are superb
LandoSystems
07. Sep 2015 · 23:57 UTC
Well that escalated quickly... Good artwork and physics on the tentacle beast, nice work on audio (although it was a bit on the loud side), good job overall!
bombjack
08. Sep 2015 · 10:16 UTC
the tentacle sometimes move strangely but the game is fun.
crucknuk
13. Sep 2015 · 11:10 UTC
Dirty badass monster. I loved his sprite and the animation on tentacles.
Moreover Your game is fun!